Dewey & Kaye works to open offices in Cleveland and Baltimore

Dewey & Kaye, a Downtown-based consulting firm for nonprofit organizations, is opening its first offices outside Pittsburgh, adding sites in Cleveland and Baltimore.

It has been a busy few months for the firm and its managing director, Kate Dewey. In June, Dewey & Kaye merged into Philadelphia-based accounting firm ParenteBeard LLC.

The Cleveland office will open in September and will be led by Susan Eagan, who was head of the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Management at Case Western University and previously was vice president of the Cleveland Foundation. The Baltimore office will open Jan. 1, led by Jill Schumann, president of Lutheran Services of America and a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions.

Schumann will be based at ParenteBeard’s Baltimore office but will serve a broader territory, including Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Eagan will operate from an office based in her Cleveland home.

Dewey said her firm has long served clients in these regions.

“We have always had a high level of interest in those regions, but we didn’t have people on the ground,” Dewey said. “We believe it’s important to have someone within an hour to an hour and a half geographically of being able to serve clients. You enhance the value of your service when you can be close at hand. Secondly, there was an opportunity to bring onto our team two people who bring a level of sophistication and understanding of the issues that face nonprofits and foundations.”

She said both Schumann and Eagan will add staff at their sites but could not say how many or when. They also will be able to tap Dewey & Kaye’s eight Pittsburgh employees, plus various specialists within ParenteBeard.

“The power is in the combination,” said James Bauerle, director of legal and business services at Downtown law firm Keevican Weiss Bauerle & Hirsch LLC who handles many M&A transactions. “In the service business, hiring professionals who are in the community and know it and its unique features is key. And going with the name the practice is recognized for, keeping a separate identity, may give Dewey & Kaye a competitive advantage in these markets, compared to other accounting firms that lump the nonprofit service set into their overall offering.”

Dewey & Kaye does not disclose its financial results. Founded in 1990, it merged into Pittsburgh accounting firm McCrory & McDowell in 2005, which subsequently merged into ParenteBeard three months ago. Through both transactions, Dewey & Kaye retained its brand identity.

Dewey said her practice saw a rise in business when it became part of McCrory & McDowell and expects growth as part of much-larger ParenteBeard, which employs around 1,000 professionals, 145 of whom are partners.

“ParenteBeard has exceptional depth in higher education, senior living and human services from an auditing, accounting and tax perspective, and that provides us with a depth of understanding and people to bring in on these engagements who are really quite senior,” Dewey said.

She said it’s likely that more Dewey & Kaye offices will be added.

“But that won’t happen in 2012,” she said. “We very much want to maintain our 98 percent customer satisfaction, so strategically, we want to be very thoughtful. In 2013, we’ll see if we beef up an existing office or create another one.”